'We lost it more so than they won it'

The next-door neighbours in maroon have really caused a lot of heartbreak for Meath over the past couple of weeks.

A week on from that devastating defeat in the Leinster SFC, the Westmeath camogs followed suit and clawed back a three-point deficit to knock Stephen Sheil’s Meath out of the Leinster Camogie Intermediate championship.

Sheil who is a native of Carlow but has held residency in the Lake County for the past decade, was disappointed with his sides performance. The former Sligo hurling manager was left frustrated by his sides work-rate in the second-half and also felt that Meath lost the game more so than Westmeath won it.

“I am not going to butter it up, we didn’t perform. We were three points up at one stage and we let them back into it. We rucked and rucked but we couldn’t come out with the ball. We just didn’t work hard enough in the second-half," he said.

"There was some silly decision-making towards the end there as well. We left it late against Carlow to get to the league final and we got away with it but we shouldn't be leaving it that late to try get over the line and it cost us today. We will learn from it and move on.

“We targeted Megan Dowdall as their key player but she was not the one doing the real damage today. We lost it more so than they won it. That is the way I am looking at it.

"I can't have any complaints about the defence, they were very good. In the middle third, we were on top in the first-half. We won seven out of our first nine puck-outs and won seven out of 10 of theirs. I don’t know what happened around the middle in the second-half. Westmeath didn’t change anything and neither did we. Our players just seemed to hit a mental block or something.”

Sheil felt that there was nervous energy and a feeling of unease within his side even before Saturday’s clash at Cusack Park. He also spoke about the lack of ball that was delivered into Meath’s dangerous full-forward line and described his team's second-half performance as a bit flat.“There was a bit of nervous energy coming down and I think it was because we knew what Westmeath are like and how tough a battle it was going to be. The fact that we are playing them three times this year as well, there is a bit of rivalry there and there was a bit of unease before the match even started. In the warm-up we tried to hype them up but we were just a bit flat in the second-half and unfortunately, too many of our players were not firing at the same time,” said Sheil.

"It is a completely different Westmeath team that we played against in the league. I went down to see them against Kildare last weekend and it was not much of a contest.

"Erin Core and Aoife O’Malley in midfield are little dynamites and they came out with all the rucks. We had a couple of aimless pucks just trying to get the sliotar down the field. Emma Regan didn’t really get a whole lot of ball into her, same with Red (Ciara Foley).

"There just wasn’t a whole lot going into them. That had been working well for us in previous games and it is not like we asked them not to do it or anything. It was just the way the game unfolded."

Aoife Minogue was without a doubt Meath’s star player the last time the side reached an All-Ireland Intermediate Camogie final back in 2023. The Dunderry woman has been in Australia for the past couple of years, but her return to the set-up and the minutes that she got into her legs was a silver lining to take away from the defeat.

Sheil also feels that he has strengthened his squad and is pleased with the core group of 26 players within the panel but was disappointed with their performance against their neighbours.

“Aoife (Minogue) came back to us on Wednesday evening. She hasn’t done a whole lot. We threw her on to see what they were going to do with her and they picked her up very quickly. It's great to get her back though," enthused the manager.

"We have Ciara Flanagan in as well from the u-23s and Grainne O’Leary has come in as sub goalie. We have strengthened the panel and we are down to 26 players. We could have asked more girls to come in but we have a strong core group now. Today doesn’t reflect what the girls are capable of and it is disappointing.”

Sheil concluded by theorising that the league final against Kerry in Banagher may have left it’s mark on his players.

“Westmeath had three or four weeks of a gap there before they had a sharpener against Kildare where they got their touch back in. In that time we played the league final on tough, heavy ground in Banagher. We have four weeks now until the All-Ireland series. We will focus on getting our homework right for that over the next few weeks and take it one game at a time when it comes around.” concluded Sheil.

Meath’s opening round All-Ireland Intermediate Camogie clash will be, for better or worse, against Westmeath in four weeks time. Until then, Meath will have to lick their wounds and focus on putting Saturday's result behind them.